Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons novel Chapter 703

Chapter 703: Chapter 703 - Taming the Fifth Year - Blood Debt - 5

Klein watched from his position, unable to fully process what he was seeing.

Ren had been in front of them just a second ago. Standing right there with the group, analyzing the ambush formation, clearly aware of the danger but seemingly contained by it. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

’How...?’

"Ah!"

Understanding clicked. Klein thought of Luna.

A shadow jump.

Ren had used the tunnel’s dim lighting and his own darkness manipulation to simply relocate without bothering with the physical space between.

His huge bag was now resting in the ground, so big and fluffy it had made no sound in its small fall to the ground...

♢♢♢♢

Ren’s thoughts flowed with the cold clarity of someone remembering something unpleasant but not particularly threatening.

Jin Strahlfang.

The textbook bully... The idiot with a superiority complex who thought that having a ’superior beast’ automatically made him superior as a person. Who’d built his entire identity around an accident of birth, being born into a house with good wealth and ’knowledge’ of spirit beast cultivation.

One of those that never developed actual personality or skills beyond that single fortunate circumstance.

Ren remembered perfectly every "encounter" with Jin during his first year at the academy.

The taunts about his weak spore, the threats delivered, the pathetic attempts at intimidation that never worked because Jin was, fundamentally and completely, a moron who telegraphed every move and thought volume of nuisances could substitute for actual menace.

’But I never felt truly threatened,’ Ren pondered while watching Jin try uselessly to move under the pressure of his darkness mana. ’Because the group was led by an idiot. And idiots are predictable.’

Jin and his group had always been his particular punching bag during that first year.

When the taunts came, Ren returned them with interest, turning insults back on their creators with ease that left them sputtering. When they tried pranks, Ren reversed them and left them looking like fools. Every plan they made was so obvious, so telegraphed, that he could see the moves coming from kilometers away.

It had almost been fun in a tedious sort of way. Like solving the same easy puzzle repeatedly, never particularly challenged but occasionally mildly entertained by new variations of the same basic stupidity.

’Almost,’ Ren admitted internally.

The key word being "almost". Because beneath the entertainment value, there had always been the underlying annoyance of dealing with someone too stupid to recognize when they were outmatched, someone whose ego wouldn’t let them accept reality no matter how many times it was demonstrated.

Jin finally managed to make his right arm move.

With a roar of pure effort, spiritual energy burning together with corruption to force his muscles into motion, he spun completely. His hand swept through the air in a blow aimed at where Ren’s head had been.

But Ren was no longer there.

Jin hit the ground hard.

The impact drove almost all the air from his lungs in a explosive gasp. His corrupted body absorbed some of the damage, but pain still exploded through every nerve, bright and sharp and impossible to ignore.

"This time you need to see your defeat better," Ren said, standing over him with the casual posture of someone who’d already won and was just explaining why. "Every second of it. Let’s see if it finally sticks in your small head that you’re not on my level."

Ren’s voice had the tone of someone stating obvious facts rather than delivering taunts.

"That you never were."

Jin tried to speak. Tried to spit some threat, some declaration of vengeance, some final defiant words that would prove he hadn’t been completely crushed.

All that came out was blood from where he’d bitten his tongue with the impact of the initial blow. The metallic taste filled his mouth.

"And that you never will be."

Ren observed him with something that might have been pity but then it just looked like contempt for wasted potential and stupid choices.

"Your equally dumb brother I remember well," Ren said softly, his voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty, "And again... he was not one that deserves "justice" nor was he my first death... But he was the first up close and personal, that I’ll give you."

The words settled into the tunnel like stones sinking in water.

"And never, ever, will I regret it."